Vampire Hunter D: Dark Nocturne (23 page)

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Racing madly down the road was a white carriage drawn by a pair of horses. It was so elegantly crafted, it was apparent at a glance that it belonged to the Nobility—and up in the driver's seat, a young man was madly working a whip. Yet his visage was as expressionless as a stark white Noh mask, and he didn't so much as raise an eyebrow at the sound of gasoline-powered car engines now less than fifty yards behind him.

As the upright collar of the man's coat was knocked down by the force of the wind, the neck that was left exposed had a pair of swollen and discolored wounds at the nape—punctures undoubtedly left there by fangs. Neither human nor Noble, he was merely a puppet who moved at the commands of the master who'd given him the kiss of the Nobility—a
Cesare
.

Although he'd avoided the post towns, he was spotted by a bunch of rustic youths who'd been out playing too long on the back roads, and they decided to give chase. But whether that troubled the driver's numbed brain or not was difficult to determine.

At that moment, a cold voice linked the youth to the vehicle like a thread.

“Our foes are coming. What in blazes are you doing?!”

With veritable thunder echoing from the wagon wheels, the comment still rang in the young man's head as if it had been whispered right into his ear.

“It's beyond my power to make them go any faster,” he replied, not seeming particularly agitated. “Mistress, I think perhaps you might—”

“Do you think I would actually sit up there next to a servant and work the reins?” the voice said softly, but she quickly laughed, “Oh, very well. Move over!”

Offering no protests, the young man slid to the right, at which point the roof of the carriage opened smoothly and a figure of pure white appeared in the void. Moonlight gave her the luster of silver.

As the figure moved into the position the driver had previously occupied, the young man reeled backward at the same time.

The figure in white—clearly female from the sound of her voice—put one hand to the wound on his neck that had left his head connected by a narrow strip of skin. She was stanching the flow of blood.

Turning her golden brown eyes in a loving glance at the youth who'd been killed instantly, she said, “Now that I no longer have you, I shall have no choice but to do it myself. Hmm . . . I wonder where I shall find my next servant?”

As she pursed her lips, a gunshot rang out behind her. One of her pursuers had fired a conventional rifle. As if on cue, a number of sparks shot from various points on the carriage.

Without warning, the carriage tilted to the right—the figure in white had suddenly tugged the reins to turn in that direction. Though the horses managed the turn, it proved too much for the vehicle. Bolts in the coupler connecting the horses to the carriage blew out automatically, setting the animals free.

The vehicle toppled over. Wagon wheels churned up dust and threw grass from the plains everywhere. Shaking the earth, the vehicle rolled a second time and a third before settling down.

Less than five seconds later, a quartet of lights came gliding down the highway. Cutting their engines about fifteen feet shy of the carriage, the young men got out of their low-slung motorcars armed with every imaginable weapon.

Their vehicles hardly deserved to be called cars. The bodies were rough frames from easily workable materials like wood and light alloys that'd then been fitted with tires and an engine—in other words, go-karts. Each of them looked well-used, with their engine compartments pitch black with soot.

“You figure they're dead?” asked one of the young men.

“No chance. We're dealing with the Nobility here. We can't afford to let our guard down.”

“If we can catch it instead of killing it, it could be more useful later. We could bring it to some research center in the Capital, and I hear they'd pay a fortune for it.”

Compared to other areas, the western Frontier had been relatively free of trouble with the Nobility after their decline. Therefore, it was understandable that as generations passed, there were more and more people who didn't know how fearsome the Nobles truly were. However, these young men didn't realize that when actually faced with one, their earlier words would count for nothing.

Driven purely by a lust for fame and wealth, the young men walked right over to death's door.

The door opened.

With the creak of hinges, the upward-facing carriage door had slowly swung in an arc. From it, something like a white glow popped up, then glided down to stand beside the carriage, where it resolved into a young woman who wore a white dress and had flowing black tresses. She had neat little eyebrows like willow leaves, eyes as dark as a holy night, and a nose and lips that were beautifully delicate, with every tiny wrinkle and crease of the latter so sharp they'd burn themselves into the retinas of all who saw them. The girl's entire body was also shrouded in white phosphorescence. No, you could actually go so far as to call it a white flame.

The unearthly aura that welled from her rooted the recklessly courageous young men.

One stepped forward with a longsword in hand. He was their leader, and by far the fiercest of the bunch.

It's just a damn Noble
, he told himself, but there was nothing he could do about the tremble in his legs. As if to shake it off, he gave a shout of, “Take that!” and drove his blade into the woman.

They had heard about the Nobility's immortal nature from their mothers and fathers. Although stabbing such a creature anywhere but through the heart wouldn't destroy it, it could still prove fairly effective. They would try and grab her while she was still wincing from being struck in the belly—that's what the leader thought.

Not moving a muscle, the woman took the blade through her svelte abdomen.

“Holy shit!” the young man screamed as he stumbled forward.

Feeling no contact, no physical resistance whatsoever, the longsword sank into the young woman's form up to the hilt, and then the young man himself slipped right through her body.

“Whatever are you doing?”

Slamming nose-first into the ground, the young man snorted angrily but quickly got up again as her voice resounded behind him with naked scorn. He turned around in shock.

The woman's form had vanished abruptly, but she now stood about ten feet in front of his compatriots, who'd also turned the same way. In her left hand she cradled the young man whose head dangled back on the thin strip of skin connecting it to his neck—her driver. Her right hand kept his gaping neck wound covered all the while.

“You—you stupid bitch!”

“Come to me. This time, I shall be the real thing,” she told them, her voice so refreshingly clear, it seemed as if the moon above them had spoken.

Ignorant of what lay behind that tone, all the young men aside from the leader shouldered their rifles. Flames and the booming report of gunfire rocked the night air. Due to the fact that their ammunition used far more gunpowder than necessary, the heavy rifles kicked their barrels up nearly ninety degrees.

But what shook horribly under the impact of the bullets was the driver's corpse. Even though the young men realized she was using him as a shield, it still looked to them almost as if he'd stepped in front of the gunfire of his own accord. For a second they were blasted by a gale of sheer terror, and their fingers ceased pulling the triggers.

“I desire a substitute,” said the voice of the unseen girl. It was as if the headless corpse had spoken. “One of you—for the rest I have no use.”

A white blur rose straight up from the corpse's neck. The five fingers that'd capped the wound had been taken away.

But something sparkled brilliantly in the moonlight as it rose in a geyser. As the youths watched, it spread in midair, billowing against them like black gossamer and staining their bodies with something dark. Blood. The blood of the driver.

There was no sense protesting that the heart pumping his blood should've already stopped when the only possible explanation was that it continued working even though his head had been almost completely taken off.

Dyed black, the young men stood paralyzed with disbelief for a while, but each soon gave a dying scream and fell to the ground. The gore that'd rained down on them was no ordinary blood. As a result of coming into contact with the girl's hand, it had been transformed into a drug of sorts that, on entering the human body, caused a chemical reaction with their own blood that in turn formed an unknown but virulent poison. Even their flesh and bones were dissolving.

Ironically, the only one spared was the first one whose skin had come into contact with the black blood. As his friends' faces and limbs collapsed into piles of offal, the leader could only stare in utter shock.

“Come to me,” said the girl, beckoning to him with her hand. Now no longer necessary, the corpse of her driver had been discarded at her feet.

It was the leader's good fortune that the girl's beckoning gesture was done half in jest—she had put no hypnotic power behind it. He still had a means of escape. Pushing the longsword he had in his hand against his neck, he slashed through the carotid artery before the woman's voice or the gleam of her eyes could reach him.

“Of all the nerve,” the girl said, her voice carrying the first signs of loathing and agitation. “He won't make much of a servant like that. Now where am I supposed to find another one? But wait—there may be a chance if he's not completely dead yet!”

As if she'd just had a wonderful idea, the girl raced gaily to the prone form of the leader. So long as he hadn't died, it would be possible to give him “the kiss of the Nobility” and transform him into one of the living dead. It would be easy enough to get him to do the trivial duties she had for him.

Easily taking away the longsword he gripped, she grabbed the leader by the scruff of the neck and flipped him over. At the time, she didn't notice the spokes from the broken wagon wheel lying beside him.

The leader opened his eyes a crack.

“How splendid! I hope you shall enjoy serving me.”

Her pale and lovely visage slowly moved closer to the nape of his neck, and a heartbeat later, an unearthly scream gushed from the girl's mouth. She was going to suck the blood from a half-dead man who could offer no resistance. But in the end, it was that simple act that'd invited her to drop her guard.

Like a curse on the swell of bosom in her white dress, the wooden spokes that'd supported the rim of the wheel were stuck through the middle of her chest. In his dying seconds, the group's leader had wrung one last bit of strength from himself to drive the jagged chunk of wood into the girl's torso. Though he ceased breathing almost immediately, he must've been satisfied by her screams, because in death his face wore an unsettling grin.

“You bastard! You rotten bastard!” the girl bellowed as she reached for the stake in her chest.

To be perfectly honest, her wound wasn't that deep. The young man's strength had been spent. And yet the girl couldn't pull it out.

But take a closer look at it. The wheel had lost its outer rim, and most of the wooden spokes had broken off the hub, but a pair was still left sticking out from either side, forming the shape of a cross. A cross-shaped stake.

White smoke poured from the hand that'd grabbed hold of it, and her skin had melted away.

Unable to say a word, she was writhing when her body was abruptly turned over to face upward. Before her surprise could even register, the stake was pulled out.

“Who are you—?” the girl asked. Apparently some of the cross's effect still remained, as she was barely able to catch her breath.

“I am Baron Byron Balazs,” the figure in the blue cape said, snapping the stake in two and hurling the pieces far away. “What are you doing out here?”

Putting one hand to her chest, where a crimson rose had blossomed, the girl let out an easy breath. She'd recognized him as one of her kind.

Curtsying respectfully, she said, “I am Miska, granddaughter of Duke Cornelius Drake, director of the Southern Frontier Control Committee. And I have certain business that takes me to the village of Krauhausen.”

“What are the odds?” the baron muttered, and the girl seemed to read something in his expression.

“Could it be that you're headed there as well? If you don't mind, might I travel in your company?” she asked in a voice that tugged at him with dependency.

“That may prove problematic,” the baron said noncommittally. He wasn't exactly traveling alone.

“I can't, then?”

Despair spread across her face like the legs of a black spider, but at that point the girl turned with a start. She'd just noticed that the baron was staring at something.

About thirty feet away, D stood beside a colossal bole.

“And who is this?” the girl—Miska—asked in spite of herself.

His sordid raiment was such a mismatch for his elegant features, she couldn't help but ask. He looked like nothing shy of a Noble.

“This is my trusted escort. He's known as D.” And after introducing him, the baron asked, “Well?”

He was referring to the matter of Miska.

“D? It can't be,” the girl said before the man could respond, shock reshaping her countenance. “Vampire Hunter ‘D'—how many times I've heard that name. He's our sworn foe!”

“He's traveling with me. My partner, so to speak.”

At the baron's words, Miska's expression wavered.

“Is he your servant, then?”

“Regretfully, I haven't laid a finger on him. As I mentioned, he's accompanying me on my journey to the village of Krauhausen to keep me safe.”

“Impossible,” Miska groaned as she put her fist to her mouth. “A Noble and a Hunter would never travel together . . . I simply can't believe it!”

“Regarding what I just asked you—what do you say?” the baron inquired.